Fish in a creek barrel

After work yesterday, Geoff wanted to go fishing. We went down to the creek at the edge of our property and with a few old hamburger rolls we nabbed several catfish and several sunfish. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. The fish are semi-marooned there, until it rains. There is a deep pool and the creek isn't flowing because no water is running under the bridge, save for a tiny trickle. The pond water level is horribly low. So they are stuck, and they are hungry. And we fed them. We didn't just catch them to feed them, we threw a ton of the bread into the water to give them something to eat... it wasn't all just "ha HA! If you desire food you must first be injured! We are so eeeeevil!!!" Naah. Not us. Not too often.

It made up for the stress I experienced on my way home. I was tailgated and threatened by a guy in a Titan V8 truck, silver. I honestly thought he was going to get out and kill me at the traffic light on Lynnfield St. and Summit in Peabody... Suffice to say, I can't go any faster than the vehicle in front of me. I'm not speeding up to risk a ticket because some dickwad behind me is in a hurry. If it was a medical emergency or something, he should have called an ambulance. Sorry dude.

I think I know where he lives, and I will be cautious at 5pm when I drive by there, lest he be on my ass again. And I'll have the phone ready to call the Peabody police.

Is it hard to make arrangements with yourself...

"Is it hard to make arrangements with your self
when you're old enough to repaint but young enough to sell?"
-Neil Young

My quote of the moment there on the left is Neil Young's Tell Me Why, one of his greatest songs. It has been running through my head for days... and I get that little lick going when I'm dissatisfied with where my life is.

Let's evaluate together, shall we?

I'm happy to have a job, I'm glad my kids are healthy. They're developing wonderfully, even with the bumps and bruises and pimples of regular life. We have money and a roof over our heads. Our school district is okay, if not better than okay. I'm not happy about Geoff's teacher assignment but will fight tooth and nail for him, that's not a problem. Jessie is doing great in school, and she's a blessing to have around. I like her friends. I'm not worried about the next four years of her development, as long as all the kids stay their course. I'm ready for the usual challenges. I'm even ready for the catastrophes. I'm fine with the kids and being their mom. So my unhappiness isn't with them.

I've put my Masters in Ed program on hold because I realized that right now I make about 15k more than I would if I were a first-year teacher, and I don't have to struggle with the crap that being an educator brings with it. At work there are often power struggles over who gets to do what, who gets what, who has what task... and I couldn't care less because I just don't want to be involved. MB asked me one day why I wasn't more ambitious -- why I didn't WANT more decision making power. I've learned through the past several years that no one listens to me anyway ... so why bother fighting, kicking and scratching to get my way? I just want to collect a paycheck and go the hell home. I don't know if it is lack of ambition or pure common sense, but I just don't want to be one of the power players. I did that at the State College and was treated like absolute shit most of the time... even though my decisions were the right ones... someone else with a bigger mouth, bigger sack of brass balls, or bigger title always got his or her way. With disastrous results. And I left there and nothing has changed.

My being anywhere in the work world means to me -- a paycheck. My life, my being, my soul and my dreams are not in a brick & mortar. I'm more than happy to help out, to be the sled dog, the work horse, the whipping boy. But I want to walk away at the end of the day and just be done with it. So in my mind, work is not an issue. I get paid and as long as my checks don't bounce, I can put up with the rough weeks (Like last week. This week was a cake walk and reminded me why I love my job), the noisy office, the weird coworkers (not you france) and the commute.

My husband is once again considering an advanced degree, which is all fine and good. Sometimes he's like me and just wants the paycheck and to come home, and other times he exhibits this desire, this drive, to advance and be and do... and then I feel like my life is in flux so I worry and am unhappy. I'm good, giving and game when it comes to him making the life choices for himself, and plan on supporting them until he comes up with something that is just way too fucked up and stupid (Hey! Let's uproot the family and move to Iceland!).

My husband frustrates me but only in the normal way spouses get under the skin. He's a great man, and hell -- he wins father of the year for the fishing derby this past spring and I will never ever forget that. He's a good man... a little to cerebral and not fix-er-upper enough sometimes, but he stays home, loves camping with us, makes me laugh, and is a hell of a great cook. After 14 years of marriage, I'm not tired of him. I love him with the deepest depths of my soul. So I know my happiness is insured there.

I am kind of disgruntled with my neighbors, my neighborhood, the traffic and my tenants. When we bought this house in 1996, this was a busy street but it wasn't THAT busy. Now it is a major trucking route for some damn dump and construction vehicles. They start rumbling through at 7am and that shit doesn't stop until after 8pm.

I'm wanting to move. I'm wanting 11 acres of land and a house set far back from the street so I don't need to hear the goddamn traffic.

Is that all that is bothering me? Would I be happier somewhere else? New Hampshire, Michigan, Arizona? Or would I feel like I have the same redneck neighbors and same bullshit from the school district no matter where I am.

Meh.

---

Ever since I was pregnant with Geoff I've been superstitious about wishing for things to happen. For instance, I kept telling my doctor that I wanted Geoff to be born in late December so I could get the tax write off. We joked about inducing me.

And I had pre-term labor November 22nd, and he was almost born 2 months early and I spent a month on my back in a hospital. And he was still born the following year, so I had all that crap and no tax write off, and now I have a little boy with some problems and issues which may or may not be associated with genetics, may or may not be associated with his precipitous delivery, may or may not be associated with the pre-term difficulties he and I went through.

Be careful what you wish for -- you just might get it.

Wishes come answered in packages of snakes. You get your wish, but it comes out all wrong and venomous.

Part of me wishes for money to fall from the sky. A cash windfall which then puts us in a position where one of us won't have to work. One would, just to get insurance, because I'm so not paying out of pocket for that crap.

In order for money to fall from the sky though, in our situation, someone has to pass away and leave it to us. That would suck. There isn't anyone I want to have pass away from our lives. And the one person who would be leaving us money would also be leaving a family battle for the money where we'll probably end up shafted anyway, so we'd lose her loving presence, and watch as the rest of the family ate itself alive fighting over things.

Money would make it so we could buy something elsewhere, fix this up nice, sell it (while living somewhere else) and just take that natural next step in the homeowning process. This being a "starter" home, I feel we've started the hell out of it and can and should progress to the next place that culturally we're expected to go.

But we don't NEED to. We're fine here. ""Is it hard to make arrangements with your self when you're old enough to repaint but young enough to sell?"

Yes, Neil, it is.

---

Anyway. The men went to vacuum the truck. I'm supposed to be cleaning the dishes. It feels good to just kind of sit and write. Thanks for listening to my bitchfest. No matter where I am, here's where I live. And you're my neighbors. Now get your dog out of my yard and clean up his crap, wouldya?

Window Replacements

Right now I'm all dressed and ready for work, and having a hard time fathoming the fact that in two weeks Jessica will have already left for the bus and at this time will be finishing with homeroom/skills and moving onto first period.

I feel like we've had a very fun summer. My feet aren't as tan as last year (see to the left there, August 2004) when I was underemployed. I didn't get to teach this year with prof CM and that made me very sad. But camp kept the kids happy and bright, and Doug and I were able to coordinate all the picks and drops so that no one was left somewhere accidentally. I wish there could be a few more weeks before school starts. But that just isn't the case. There's a lot I need to do in the next few weeks to get them ready, and I just don't want to wrap my head around the tasks at hand.

I dread the end of summer.

---

We are having the upstairs windows replaced.

The guy is supposed to be here to take the measurements between 7 and 8 am. It's almost 8am. I'd like to leave for work, buddy. Thanks. Glad Doug is still in bed so he can take over for me so I can go.

I'm waiting on Geoff to finish breakfast and get his bathing suit on. He lost his watch at camp on Wednesday and didn't tell me, so I don't know if we'll ever see it again. I'm kind of disappointed. It was a cheap burger king watch, but he did SUCH a good job all summer long with taking it off before swimming, keeping it with his glasses, taking care of it and putting it away at night. He didn't tell me because he thought I'd be mad, and because he's (I think) disappointed in himself. I'm going to ask at camp if it has turned up. If it hasn't I think I'll get him a nicer watch for the school year. Something that won't make my head explode if it gets hurt or scratched or damaged, but certainly something nicer than just a burger king cheapie.

Not much else to report. I'm sure I'll have a post-pool party report about all the fun-ness that we have today. I have a big ole bag of marinade on some steak tips chillin' in the fridge. Bag o'meat.

Need more coffee and ready to hit the day. Hope you have a good one!

Geoff Haircut

To quote Nance, who yesterday morning "...poured a cup of coffee and sat on my dead ass for about 2 hours, surfing the net and cussing all of you who do not update regularly. Boring drivel is better than no drivel at all, people. Embrace the updating already!"

Heh. Embrace the updating. Yeah -- I've been slow in the update department myself, and I'm sure she visited here once or twice in the past couple of weeks and said "Gah." As did many of you. But it's just been insane, and I should really get the wireless router hub thing put in here so I can use the office computer online and upfreakingdate from the couch when Doug and Jess are on the PC.

Well -- I took Geoff for a haircut the other night. For a kid who didn't want a haircut he did sit wonderfully and was well behaved and we were out of there in 12 minutes. He's enjoying camp a lot this week, and that's a great thing. Tomorrow we have guys coming to measure the upstairs apartment windows for replacement. As if my life isn't a big enough mess. But they have been living with leaky windows that have panes falling out, so it's high time I cowboy up with the money and pay for them to be replaced. Tomorrow we're also having a barbecue at work over at G&D's house. I need to shave my legs. They have a pool and I will probably go in. I'm marinading steak tips right now because I am the queen of the grill.

I guess this qualifies as a "Boring drivel is better than no drivel at all" kind of entry that Nance longs for once in a while. I bet I'll have more to write about later. I've been thinking about Cindy Sheehan, war protests, soldiers who die who enlist of their own free will, sweet neo-con, stupid Mick Jagger, expensive concert tickets, why the radio station never plays my BNL requests (jerks), Amy, Steve and Virginia, and beer.

But nothing which can really fall into the form of an entry, so I have to just leave you with that rambley bullshit for now. In the meantime, the License Plate Bingo set on Flickr continues to grow. Go visit and enjoy.

"I lied about being the outdoor type..."

While geocaching at the Mystic River beach (Sandy Beach) which I presume is in Medford, not sure which town it is, we ran across this little grove with cement animal figures in it. They stand apart from the rest of the action, far, far away from where little kids are. Which is sad, because they were so damn cool.

There is a whole Flickr.com set of pictures of these animals and their one friend -- Geoff. If you want to go check them out. My girl "C" at work told me that on the Nahant Beach at the rotary there used to be this same little herd of alphabet animals, and she used to play on them. She has pictures of herself and her sister and cousin on the animals.

I would love to have one of these animals in my yard. The "G" had "ays" written after it on the giraffe's body. God Bless Photoshop. Or else I couldn't have taken the nice picture of my son I have here.

Are there more of these around the MDC parks? I should ask at Universal Hub or something...

By the way -- Geoff is looking totally "Lord of the Flies" lately. It is time for a sheering. C'mere Little Sheep! Buzzzzzzzzz

---

So indeed, as per usual, over the weekend we did a little geocaching. Yes, on Saturday especially it was hot, Africa/Monkey/Tarzan hot. You pick the adjective to describe how hot it was and it was most likely that hot if not hotter.

But we do not fear the heat.

We picked this series of Geocaches that run along the Middlesex Canal. There are 12 caches total in this series, and each cache is a multi-stage (meaning more than one stop) cache. We did the first two on Saturday. They start on the Medford/Sommerville line, and progress north to Lowell. The great thing about the caches is the hider(s) really put a lot of time and effort into researching the history of the Canal system between the Merrimack river and Boston, and they provide historical tid-bits for each stop on the caching hunt trip. Pretty cool.

We did two more on Sunday, only to have our hunting time called to a halt by a string of nasty thunder storms, and an attack of bees.

Yes. I was stung again on Sunday. So was Geoff.

We were in Winchester, at the final stage of Part 3 of the Middlesex Canal caches, and Doug was about 20 yards to the north of us. I was so convinced he was totally way way off, and Geoff and I were going through a pile of brush and logs that were set off the trail. Caches are often hidden under brushpiles. Which is lame and stupid, but I figured it was a good enough place to look. I've often found caches without the GPSr in hand, simply by looking at the "landscaping" around on the ground. This pile of rocks doesn't belong here. These several branches don't match this tree that they are under.

I looked at the ground after a while and there was this hole. And the hole seemed to be moving, bubbling if you will. They looked like little bits of fool's gold -- shining in the sun, wings reflecting the rays. I realized it looked like angry fool's gold. Then it suddenly dawned on my bear-of-little-brain mind that fool's gold doesn't fucking move.

They were bees. Very angry bees.

So I got stung while I stood there, and jumped and started running as I felt about ten more bombing my head. I ran past Geoff and yelled at him "Run!"

He turned to me and asked "Why?"

Now, let me tell you kids something. When you see a 200 pound old lady running as fast as she can out of the woods, you do not ask "Why?" Because the very next thing you will utter is:

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Like Geoff did, as I yelled "Bees, Geoff! Bees! Run run run!"

He got stung once on the arm, I got stung once on my fat roll on my back. Stupid mofo bees. I killed four of them when Geoff caught up to me and they were walking up his pants and shirt. I smacked them with my bare hands, left a big pink handmark on his poor belly.

And the retarded thing is once we got back to the truck, regrouped, and put ice on our injuries (always prepared -- we had a cooler with iced down waters) we drove closer to the spot where Doug was looking and he walked right up to the cache, found it, logged in, and wasn't stung once.

I lied about being the outdoor type. I have decided I'm staying in for the rest of my life and playing Playstation. Well. I'm pissed at being stung again, I don't know that I'm officially divorced from Mother Nature, but I'm not pleased with her stinging bullshit.

Alright, well... you know I'll be out there next weekend. I'm a sucker.

The super sad thing is I'm more angry that we didn't get the third cache of the day yesterday because that would have been #400 for Team Screamapillar... we didn't get it because of this:

Grrrrrrrr. Bees and thunderstorms. My Sunday funday was ruined.
Mother Nature is gonna get my foot.

---

We were going to go camping this weekend but Jess had a sleep over party Friday night, and Doug doesn't like camping for one night because it's so much effort getting everything ready, set up, and then boom -- strike it and go home.

We've been talking about a long weekend trip in Maine, not to Aaron and Michelle's house but somewhere new that we haven't gone yet. We would need to leave on a Friday night, and drive and set up when we get there so we don't want to go farther than three hours away. Aaron will most likely be joining us the Saturday night after he gets out of work, so he didn't want to ride too far on his bike into the possible darkness... so it had to be somewhere not too far for both of us.

Doug and Aaron were on the phone Friday night brainstorming places for us to go.

Mount Blue State Park in Weld, ME seems to be the best place for us. Aaron can get there in about 3 hours. It is about an hour longer than I wanted to drive but that's okay as long as we can be 100% organized on Thursday night. All I want to have to do on Friday when I get home from work is pack the cooler with ice and throw the dogs and it into the truck and then go. We'll see how successful I am.

The place looks really cool. There seem to be a lot of geocaches in the area, a ton of campsites in the state park -- I can only hope they're not booked solid. That would suck.

So yeah, it looks like in two weeks we'll be making a major trek up for some tent camping and some Aaron time. I'm looking forward to it. Gotta buy more propane for the little burner. Woot!

Amy pointed out to me at the office that I haven't been writing lately. I've been very busy, to the point where even thinking of coming in here and sitting and writing makes my head hurt. Work during this week was incredibly busy. Amy being there helped out immeasurably, I must say. And in the past two days we managed to not only schedule one of the most complicated weeks in our company's programming history but we scheduled the week after that, so on this fine Friday afternoon I find myself a week ahead of schedule. And that, my friends, is a beautiful thing.

The working week sapped the living life out of me. Coming home at night I found myself with the laptop and floor plans, and writing some support documentation because we've totally moved from one platform to another and I was the only one who knew how to use it, 'cept for C who I taught a little bitty bit to at one point.

I know I didn't work nearly as hard as G and her husband did this week, I wouldn't trade places with them for anything... but I still had a long, rough week and I am relieved it is over.

---

By the way -- you know life is getting weird when you're eating your lunch at your desk, surfing your daily reads for updates and you hit two of the people sitting right behind you. I have never worked with other people who keep blogs... so it's kind of funny to read someone's update when you could just yell over the cube farm to them.

---

Does anyone have any advice on how to teach a kid how to ride a bike? Geoff is trying to learn, and we go out to the school parking lot and he tries and tries but totally isn't getting it. He says that there is this great bike riding club in Hartford that he wants to join, and they'll never let him in.

So, leave comments -- this harried mom needs some advice.

Thanks.

---

Today the elementary school posted the teacher classroom assignments for next year. I'm not thoroughly pleased with the teacher my son has been assigned to. K's (Jessie's friend) mom told me her son had this teacher last year and that she is "nice but easily overwhelmed."

And that is the last kind of person I need with my son. We just went through that. I sense a conference before the school year even begins.

I don't think I'm being aggressive or out of line. I am learning from experience here... and I'm not going to let what we went through last year happen again.

For those of you who recall, my five long-term readers who have been with me for five years, last year I was unbelievably dissatisfied with the teacher Geoff had assigned to him. Two days before school started, the teacher Geoff was assigned to was promoted to Assistant Principal, so we got this new assignment and I freaked out.

Not because she's a bad teacher or a bad person. Jessie had her in fifth grade and liked her. I just knew that she lacked the kind of knowledge and experience needed to work with a kid like Geoff. I knew from what Jessica told me. "Geoff is going to eat her alive, mom." I knew from K's mom's experience that fifth grade year that this teacher was not equipped with knowledge in special needs.

I went to the principal, I asked if Geoff could be reassigned. He said no. I argued with him. He told me that he had "the fullest confidence" in this teacher. I don't know how he could possibly have because he was new and she was coming back from maternity leave with great reluctance. He didn't know her except on paper.

She had a pulse, so what -- that gives great confidence?

His first grade teacher got wind of this sudden change and went and argued with him. He told her she was out of line.

We both tried. The first grade teacher was the only one who pegged Geoff's problems the first week of school, told us what she believed was wrong with him, and gave us great guidance and was a fabulous teacher to him. I was sad to move on to second grade, and then to have this particular woman assigned to him just blew my mind. But. We tried.

The year sucked.

It took until February for things to be okay between the two of them. She didn't really know how to respond to him and his personality and needs. By the end of the year, she finally had a good routine with him, and they ended the year on a good note but guess what -- she's not returning to teaching next year, and I don't think it is because she's expecting. I think her experience last year was just as negative as Geoff's. And that is a shame. She's a good woman with the right kids.

Problem is, you can't always have the kinds of kids you want to teach in a classroom. Sometimes a curve ball is thrown and you have to dive into the web or books or something to learn about someone's special needs. If a parent sits across from you and offers a book he or she finds helpful, take it. Read it, learn it. Don't just sit there and sigh and say "I really don't have time to read a book on this."

So the little tiny tidbit of info I have on this next teacher kind of makes me groan little Marge Simpson worried noises.

Pray for Geoff and his teacher.

---

Another thing that has me concerned is that there isn't a single boy in his class that he is friends with. Not. One. There is a boy from his Cub Scout den, one of the boys who went hiking with us on the world's hottest day this past June. He's an okay kid. A little weird, a little way too smart, and inappropriately silly and very domineering. I like for Geoff to be apart from him when we're at cub scouts because he brings the worst out in Geoff. And that's his classmate.

All of his good friends, all four or five of them, have the same teacher. And he isn't in that class. He looked at the list and turned around and walked back to the car, somewhat shocked, somewhat stunned, positively dejected. He didn't cry. He said it was good that M was in his class, but he was nowhere near as excited as I'd hoped he'd be.

I tried to let him know it was okay, they'd see each other at recess, and perhaps it is good that he has a whole bunch of new boys to make new friends with. But my words rang hollow and weak in the car over a sad Ben Folds song. Geoff said nothing in return to me. Normally, he'd enthusiastically argue or agree... this time he said nothing.

I want to stay home and homeschool him. I don't want public school any more. I don't know what these people are thinking over there... I'm really sad for him right now.

Anyway -- not the sunniest of entries. But hey, I wrote. Heh.

So much fun in the summer sun...

So yesterday we did something we have never done before. We went to Canobie Lake Park. For those of you who live within a 50 mile (or perhaps more) radius of Salem New Hampshire, you've no doubt been assailed by the radio jingle, and just seeing the words printed at the top of my screen I do believe the song is stuck in your head.

Jessie has been a few times, but we've always skipped it because we thought it was too expensive. Most of the time amusement parks are indeed way incredibly overpriced, and the lines to wait for the rides go on for halves, quarters and wholes of hours when the ride itself takes 7 seconds. That is a pain in the ass. If I want to stand still, I'll stand in my backyard for free, thank you.

But, my parents are visiting. Normally, we would just go tromp around Newburyport or Portsmouth, and we figured we would just do something a little different.

While indeed expensive, we had a great time. Geoff is a fearless rider, and Doug went with him on a few and got a little like I get -- nauseous, dizzy, and generally discombobulated. I can't go on those rides anymore. Doug quoted Toby Keith when he got off the Matterhorn and said "I ain't as good as I once was."

I didn't realize the extent of water related rides there in the park, or I would have had us dress in bathing suits and brought towels and a change of clothes. We ate dinner there in the park, which was overpriced and overburned, but was wonderful because it took a couple of low blood sugar kids from bitchy to fun again, and we were able to continue riding rides and doing stuff. Doug and I went on the Flume, and I'm almost sad that I didn't buy our picture. It was hysterically funny.

Seeing as I don't do well with rides, I was perfectly happy doing the bumper cars and the flying swings, known at the park as Davinci's Dream. I rode it once and felt so sick after I got off. I agree with Doug -- I ain't as good as I once was.

Speaking of pictures, these guys were awesome. Jess and I kept seeing them walking around the park with their girlfriends. A weenie hat and a burger hat upon their heads.

Everytime we saw them, we'd crack up. They were having a great time -- you could so tell. All four of them were laughing, and the couples were hand-holdey and life was good. I knew I had to have a picture of these dudes. So I saw them, stopped them, and had the girls totally step off (a bit mean, but they didn't have on cool hats) and they willingly posed for the shot.

I love the Frank the Tank t-shirt on the one guy!

It was an awesome day.

When I got to work this morning, my little bird's nest was gone. If you didn't read the entry from the other day, go read.

The property management came and scrubbed the front glass doors and the patio, and it looks as if they removed the nest from the backside of the 4 in 40 about 20 ft up in the air. I felt an amazing sadness this morning.

Poor birdies. Too bad they're so stupid that they nest inside signage instead of some really nice trees, which are abundant around our office park. I go lots of places and the way the signs are designed the birds just love to nest there... and in this case it was a very bad choice.

Sorry little guys.

In happier home news, my parents have found a place to call their own.

They are in their early 60s and haven't ever owned property. In fact, they've been renting the same place for over 30 years. It somehow boggles my mind that they didn't make the move earlier, but circumstances were not where they could be in order to help them make that leap.

Things have gotten so bad where they live (both my sister and I have written about the projects in the past) that they had to make the move and had to make it NOW.

So we will welcome them to the commonwealth of Massachusetts, as they take possession of their trailer in September. By the way, fuck you if you're laughing at "trailer." Yes, it is a mobile home in an over 55 community. It's all they can afford, and to be honest, it's all they need or want. If you think trailers are trashy, go spend a week where they're living NOW and you'll see that a pastoral community park for grown ups is a real blessing to them.

I am very proud of them, they made good decisions on which one to pick, and had a hell of a great buyer's broker working with them and on their behalf.

My mom had been working with a real estate agent early this year, and the woman was pushing my parents to make a decision. We had a similar problem when we started looking for a house in 1996. A very aggressive real estate agent who took us to see things that we didn't feel were "right" for us, and got mad when we changed our minds about what we wanted to see. In my mom's case, the real estate agent wanted her to put $10,000 down NOW on something, and my mom didn't realize that if the deal fell through she'd lose that money. She panicked because no one was educating her on how the process works, so she withdrew her offer and ran for the hills, discouraged and upset.

While on the phone with my mom, I told her that when we experienced pushy bullshit from a real estate agent, we ran for the hills too, and found a buyer's broker.

World of difference.

Our experience could not have been more positive, so I encouraged my mom to not give up, but to try and find a buyer's broker and go that route instead. She didn't even know where to start, so I googled and found this woman in the general area where my mom was looking. She was a name on a website of buyer's broker in southeastern Massachusetts.

With my mom on the phoen, I emailed her and explained my parents' situation, and what they were looking for, and encouraged her to contact my mom or myself for further information. The next morning she called me and we talked for 40 minutes.

And then she called my mom.

Mom had some serious constraints on the choices she could make, one of which is her cat. Doug and I were laughing that "the cat is making the decision for her..." because everything my mom looked at had to be a place where the little shit could be happy. Letting the cat dictate exactly where you're going to live is something unheard of to my husband, but I bet many of you have had these considerations to make in the past and can empathize with her dilemnas.

So my mom and the buyer's broker worked together like mad over the past several weeks, and when my mom couldn't come up to go look at things, Jackie would go in her place and give her an honest opinion of the property. They found a great spot, and there were a few trailers for sale there, and they picked one that is "the" one. I think my mom is tickled pink, and I do hope that this is a great move to a perfect place for her and my dad.

My dad's two comments were:
1. It's too quiet there, it'll take some getting used to.
and
2. We have three rooms of wall to wall carpeting for the cat to piss on.

I hope the cat his happy.

Heh.

Anyway -- I should go visit and spend time. I need to figure out what the hell we're doing for dinner. Doug is napping and everyone else seems disinterested. So. More later.

Dickety!

I must say, I love me some Grampa Simpson. He cracks me up. If you don't like him I'll give you the glowering of a lifetime! Anyway -- not much to report but it seems like a lot going on. Work is busy, and my boss G brought on Amy to help. It's convenient for her because we're in the same town as where she lives (she came in this morning and sighed and said her commute was hell! That bitch! Ha kidding...). So she's managed in two part days to help me get a full day ahead of my regular life schedule. Normally I'd be done scheduling tomorrow. But I'm done today. Horray for Amy. So I stayed a little late at the office today getting organized for starting to schedule for the week beyond next, which will be more complicated and hairy than I've ever imagined... good thing G got us some Amy.

My parents have found a place to buy, so it seems, down in the Massachusetts Armpit (get out a map, look at it, realize that Cape Cod is Massachusetts flexing an arm muscle in a curl, and you'll be able to find the armpit) Region. They're down there now wheeling and dealing and negotiating and binding stuff. They're hoping to take possession of it September 1, if all goes well.

Which means my sister will be the only real reason for me to go to Long Island anymore. She isn't happy there, and with my mom moving, there will be less of a reason overall for her to sit there in that godforsaken hell hole of a place where the least expensive house is a $599,000 "tear down" that you get .12 acres of land and have to build a whole new house on the spot. Nice.

So there are hemmings and hawings in the world about where she and R should head next. I hope it is somewhere wicked cool. Or somewhere she'll be incredibly happy.

Not "New Jersey with Palm Trees..." aka Florida.

Anyway, Grandma and Grampa were supposed to be here tonight, but their massive purchase situation makes it so they'll come here tomorrow. Gave me a reprieve on vacuuming under the couch. Whew. I can do it tonight, if I don't fall asleep first!

Today when I got to work there was a little bird sitting on the ground near the glass doors to the building. He was just sitting there, and had just enough room where he was positioned to not get hit by the door (and crushed). I tried to shoo him out of the corner, but he flopped around and tried to fly into the glass. I realized then that he was either injured or immature... and couldn't fly.

So I picked him up.

I held him, his little heart beating like mad against my hand. He walked on my fingers and chirped. He was perfectly happy hanging out on my hand. I thought he was pretty awesome. I called my buddy M in the office and told him to come down and see what I had. He was a touch freaked out by it, but also thought it was kind of cool. We realized he must have fallen out of the nest up in the 40 above our office door, way way up above our office door.

And there was no way I could get him back up there. I could hear mom (presumably) chirping for him, and I put him in a bush beside the door and hoped for the best. He chirped. very loudly when I set him down, but there really wasn't anything I could do for him. I walked away, totally worried about him and wondering if I should call animal control or the Audobon Society for some advice.

I went back an hour later to check on him, convinced I'd make him a Shoebox Bird if he was sitting there still. But. He was gone. He wasn't on the ground, or under a car dead, or smooshed in the glass doors. No feathers or obvious signs of cat attack... so I'm hoping some other feathered friend gave him a lesson on how to get back up, way way up, to the 40 nest.

Sometimes, I'm a wicked softie. Sniff. Go little birdie! Go!

I have pictures of birdie on my camera, and have to figure out how the hell to get them off of there, so you can see him. And my bee sting. And some other junk.

Welcome to nature's freakin' journal.

Right then. Well, it being late, I need to figure out what to feed my family. I'll gab at yinz later.

A sort of homecoming

I'm not even sure where to begin on this trip. I don't think I've even processed a lot of what I think and feel right now, and Lord knows I haven't discussed things with my husband.

Suffice to say, it was a long trip even though we were not there that long... one that wasn't my favorite, but the pool was nice and we got some ammo boxes at the flea market.

AND we went to the Football Hall of Fame in Ohio, so not all was lost.

The trip started out magnificently with a family reunion on my dad's side of the family. His dad's clan (Fogarty) and his mom's clan (McIlroy) haven't had lots of mixing together time. My cousin Deb worked like mad to put together a slam-bang party and it was fun to meet some of them McIlroys, and to see an Aunt and Uncle I haven't laid eyes on in years.

I always liked my Aunt Margie. She lived in California forever, and now she lives in Arizona... I had no idea, or I would have made a point of hooking up with her when we did our 'ZonaFest in 2001. We have a standing invitation to do so again, as does everyone in my family have to come here. It was so nice catching up with her, and hearing about her life in the "Super Desert," as Geoff calls it.

My uncle Buddy, I haven't seen him for about 20 something years. He moved to Florida, and there hasn't been a good link between our house and his ever. My sister hunted him down in Florida when she lived there and they had some nice visits. I always remember Uncle Buddy treating me like I was a little shit, so I didn't really care if I saw him or not.

Note to self: Be the Aunt that the kids miss when you don't see them for long stretches of time, okay?

Anyway -- he was lovely and kind and nice and polite, with a rapier wit and zings left and right to shoot at my mom, who always seems to be the target of the humorous barbs at family gatherings.

Note to self: Please tell mom how much you love her.

We had a lovely visit with the clans, and then on Sunday we did some geocaching in my hometown, which was hard because it was so amazingly hot. We ate dinner, went to bed, and got up the following morning to start our drive to Pennsylvania.

Monday night we arrived, visited with the family for a wee bit, hit the hotel and Geoff found the pool. I found the pool too. We enjoyed a swim, and got up the following morning to do it again.

Tuesday we visited with Doug's grandmother for a while, she's still got her humor about her and lives alone, but I'm not sure how long that will last. She seems weaker each time we see her. She's always so lovely to us, and it's hard to spend time with her because she can't hear well even with her aides... so there's a lot of yelling.

Note to self: Drop the grandmas a note to say you had a nice visit.

We spent time with Doug's parents, who treated us to lunch at Don Pablo's off rte 60 there near the PGH airport. We then went to a used bookstore and browsed, and back to the hotel where there was more swimming.

Wednesday I got to meet our nephew for the first time, who back in March had surgery to unfuse plates in his skull. He's lovely and looks like his mommy as much as his big sister looks like her daddy. They were lovely and we had a good visit where much laughter ensued. I absolutely adore our niece... I could spend hours with her. She is gorgeous, and funny, and she dotes on Geoff. Don't all pretty girls, it seems?



Doug didn't call his parents, which I do believe irritated his mom, and we ended up having the evening to ourselves, so we did some pimpy geocaches around Beaver. We then returned to the hotel where some swimming took place.

Thursday Doug and Dad made a plan of action for a fun day. After brief swim time, we met dad and went to the Football Hall of Fame in Canton Ohio (all bow in reverence!) It was about 90 minutes from where Doug grew up, and it was a fun place to be. The kids had a great time, I thoroughly enjoyed the history of early football and AFL memoribilia, and yes, OJ Simpson's jersey is still in the Bills' collection.



We ate dinner with Doug's other grandma who lives in Eastern Ohio, and it was a fun visit, but again -- she doesn't hear too well. Geoff got bored and wandered off. It's hard to be an 8 year old boy and hang out with GGG.

We were all very tired when we got home, and while no swimming took place in the evening, a visit to the gym made Geoff happy as he ran on the treadmill and rode the eliptical and bike for an hour. We all slept heartily, and woke early. Very brief swim, and then we went to Rogers.



Fridays in Rogers Ohio. What can I say. (Be sure to read the linked blog entry which talks about humanity in Eastern Ohio, and the fleamarket itself) Rogers Sale is like the biggest dang flea market in the universe. Perhaps. Dad likes to go there each week, and he has a systematic plan of attack where he goes through the tables, watches the auction and then sometimes visits his mom on the way home. We had done that already the day prior, so after spending one long morning at the sale, we went to a little roadhouse for lunch, and then Doug's dad had us swing by the little East Palestine cemetary where his grandparents are buried to show us how to get there.

That was sweet of him. It was nice.

We went back to the hotel so we could kill some time before going up to the house for dinner. Geoff swam, Dad and I drank a beer and watched him and talked, and Doug and Jessie both got naps (jerks).

We experienced an epic Geoff meltdown while waiting for my brother in law's birthday recognition time (ie: party but not a party) and my life got incredibly stressful and my ire got up beyond where I usually allow it to be. I had a crappy evening, and so did my son.

It was "no party" as we say in our house. That night, we had no swimming, and everyone was in bed by 10.

Saturday morning came and we were slated to split. We packed up, checked out and had lunch at Doug's folks and hit the road. We made excellent time, and I got C to the J to the K on the phone in the Scranton area, and we hooked up with him and the Missus for some beer and chat at Damon's by the WB/S airport.

Sad to say, that few hours time was the most fun I had all week.

I love Doug's family, I truly, honestly, really do. I just am different from them, and their understanding of things and how stuff can and should work is totally apart from mine.

My son is a high priority for me, and his happiness is not found in sitting on the porch chatting about family. There is a lot more that he needs aside from good conversation and a nice tall glass of iced tea. He doesn't get happiness at their house ... and they don't seem to understand that perhaps a concession should be made. All I have to say is, thank God for the pool at the hotel. Without it, maybe I would have flown home on Wednesday.

Anyway -- we stopped with CJK and Mrs. CJK, enjoyed some real quality time, albeit brief, and I laughed more in that short couple of hours than I got to laugh all week. We continued driving to almost 11pm when we reached Danbury CT. We stayed at a hotel with the honkin' loudest air conditioner in the universe, which kept turning off and on all night. It sounded like my alarm clock, so it woke me up each and every time it cycled.

Ugh.

We got up Sunday morning, Geocached in CT. I got stung by a bee at the last one we did, and we drove home.

The funny thing about getting stung by a bee is I performed one of the single most amazing acts of physical prowess I've ever executed in my life, and only my daughter was witness.

I was standing up on a ledge, about 3 feet above the trail. There was a stone wall that ran along the ledge and I'm not sure why the trail was so depressed, but it was. Doug was on the other side of the trail looking over there, and I was nosing around on my side. The kids were sitting on the trailside, tired and bored.

I knew it was time to go, because we had to get the dogs. I yelled out to Doug that it was time to abandon this one, we weren't finding it. Doug was about 80 feet from the coords when he found it, and I yelled at him "that's awesome. Sign the log and meet us at the truck." And the bee stung me.

Looking down at the back of my thigh, I saw it there and three others flying around behind it. I knew I was going to get hit again, so I went to climb quickly off the ledge and told the kids to get outta Dodge because the bees were on me.

It was then that the tips of my hiking sandals both slid under a branch, and I began to fall, face first, off the three foot high ledge. I had all the foreward momentum, and my feet were stuck. And I was slapping at a bee dangling from the back of my right thigh.

Sensing that I would most certainly break my neck, or my arm, or at least suffer some major facial structure damage, I pulled my knees up to my chest, releasing my shoes from the branch, and I jumped.

I managed to land on both feet, peed my pants a wee bit from the landing (I had to go pretty badly in the first place and landing 200 plus pounds of woman on a hard trail shakes a bit out, ya know?) and started to run.

"That was so cool." Jessica was amazed.

Yes it was, and only you got to see it. How sad is that. I yelled to Doug that I'd been stung and we were hightailing it out of the area. He didn't yell anything back, so I presumed he knew and we hoofed the .36 out as fast as we could. I got back to the truck and iced my sting. Doug caught up to us and asked why we left. He couldn't hear me yelling to him that we were outta there, and had no idea I had taken one for the team. I don't know if he believes I performed my acrobatic feat, but Jessica saw, so it happened.

If a tree falls in the forest... If Chrissy jumps in the forest...

So anyway -- yeah. That was my vacation. Returning to work was hard, because I felt like I needed a day to me. But I went back and so missed my girl C and buddy M. Jerm and his wife had their baby, a little boy, on Thursday. He rules. Can't wait to see him and sniff his little baby body.

There are Flickr pictures, and I started a new set because of this trip - License plate bingo! I actually saw more than I got pictures of... but the batteries in the camera were dead so I couldn't take pictures of Oregon, CA, Washington, Iowa, Idaho, and Arizona. Plus, I skipped all the New England State ones because I knew I could just take them here. Which I will and will add to the set.